Alicia Spinnet-Pucey (_alicia_) wrote in thelaststation, @ 2013-12-25 23:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: alicia, character: cormac, character: julian, type: log |
RP: Christmas Morning
Who: Julian Dorny, Cormac McLaggen, Alicia Spinnet, Josephine Dorny, Isla and Helena Spinnet
What: Christmas morning with a lot of people
When: Christmas morning, 25. December, 2005
Where: Alicia’s place
Rating: Should be low
Status: Ongoing
Even though she knew it would most likely be a very early morning today, Alicia hadn’t gone to bed particularly early. On the other hand, when she had gone, not just the tree, but the whole main floor of their home had been decorated, the stockings had been hung and stuffed, the presents wrapped and placed under the tree and both the brunch for today and the Christmas dinner for later today had been prepared to a point where they would require only a minimum of work today. Even the dining table in the kitchen had been set, decorated with candles and stars and some of Isla’s toy cars and tiaras, as per her request – it really did look lovely, though.
It was still dark when Alicia was jerked awake by Isla climbing over her face to bounce down in the middle of the bed and loudly announce that “Santa came!” as she proudly held out a small present, neatly wrapped and with a pretty bow on top. Alicia squinted at the present, confused for a moment, because she hadn’t left any presents in Isla’s room, but perhaps her mum – who by the sounds of it – was still asleep in one of the guest bedrooms, or Julian, maybe even Cormac? Or maybe Sam or Emilia had stopped by without her noticing it, though she didn’t get further than that speculating, when the present was shoved in her face. “Can I open?”
Alicia just nodded, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes, though the bright smile at Isla’s excitement came all on its own. “’Morning, love,” she finally managed. “Maybe we should get the others too?”
Some of the others, as it were, were already downstairs, with Helena Spinnet leading point on breakfast preparations. Julian and his mother had arrived, perhaps a little too early, but in no time at all Helena and his mum were speaking like they were life-long friends, alternately directing Julian in the kitchen while they waited for Alicia to wake.
“Juyian is downstairs,” Isla informed Alicia with a sagely nod. “And gramma.” One by one she ticked them off on her hand, and slowly Alicia began to wake up. When Isla stopped she figured that Cormac was still asleep in the upstairs guest bedroom, which was fine. They could wake him up in a bit when she’d said good morning to the new arrivals… well, to meeting Julian’s mother for first time.
“Alright,” Alicia smiled to Isla, reaching up to pull her down for a cuddle and a kiss. “Merry Christmas, Isla-love,” she chuckled as Isla squealed with delight when Alicia tickled her. “Let’s get me dressed, then you can take the present downstairs and show them what Santa brought?”
A few minutes later, Alicia had managed to get herself fumbled into a pair of yoga pants and her over-sized, worn sweater. Her hair – that she figured mostly resembled a dead cat at this point – was pulled back into a ponytail to keep some semblance of control over it. The sight that met her when she reached the kitchen had her pause for a moment. There was no doubt in her mind that her mum had been up for quite a while, and despite all the preparations last night was now making even more breakfast, accompanied by a woman that could only be Julian’s mother – the resemblance was striking. And there, right there, was Julian, looking to be kept equally busy by the two older women who for all intents and purposes could just as easily have been cooking breakfast together for a decade or two. “Morning,” she chuckled, and slipped an arm around Julian’s waist, “Merry Christmas,” while Isla bounced over to the kitchen counter to get a closer look at the food that was cooking.
Julian smiled at her, wide and brilliant, then leaned close to give the tip of her nose a kiss. It was innocent and familiar, nothing he thought anyone in the room would find overly controversial. "We were just starting to place bets on when the smell of breakfast would lure you and Isla downstairs," he shared, then smiled at his mother, who was beginning to hover.
"Mum, this is Alicia. Ali, my mother, Josephine Dorny," he said, introducing the two. He bent down to pick up Isla, who'd wandered back from the counter hoping to get Julian to help her get a better look at the food, and introduced her as well. "And this is Isla."
Alicia watched as Isla first beamed a smile at Mrs. Dorny, then hid against Julian’s neck. With a chuckle, she brushed her hand over her daughter’s wild-from-sleep curls, before she smiled at Julian’s mother and held out her hand to her. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Dorny,” she greeted her, “and good morning. Had I known you’d be here this early, I would have… well, I don’t know. I hope I’d have been up earlier, too.” Try as she might, she couldn’t stop smiling. Her tummy was feeling like she was in free fall, but in a good way, because this? This felt like a big step, and that had her tighten her hold around Julian’s waist, just a little.
She shot a good-natured glare of warning in her mum’s direction when she heard the snort of disbelief that came from her, only to have a ‘yeah, right’ glance returned. Isla’s curiosity seemed to have over won her shyness, and looking out from under Julian’s chin, she looked at Mrs. Dorny for a moment, before she too held out her hand to her, just like Alicia had taught her. “This’ my mum, this’ my gramma, this’ Juyian,” Isla continued Julian’s introductions of everybody, pointing out each of them, until she pointed towards the ceiling. “My daddy still sleep in Emma’s room.”
“That’s right, love,” Alicia agreed. “Maybe you should go wake him up too?” Not knowing how much Julian’s mother knew about the situation, Alicia waited until Isla was out of the kitchen, before she spoke again. “Cormac, Isla’s father, I invited him to join us for Christmas.” True, it had the potential for being an awkward situation, but nowhere near as awkward as knowing he would be alone and missing out on Christmas with Isla.
---
Although it was a bit weird at first for Cormac to be at Alicia’s for Christmas, he was happy to have somewhere to be for the holidays. He’d ignored all the owls from his mum asking him to come for Christmas. Maybe one day they would be able to come to some kind of understanding or at least tolerate each other, but for now he was still far too angry.
The best part had been getting to see Isla though. He still was in far over his head on this whole parenting thing, but it was nice to see her so excited about Christmas and getting to know her better. They’d decorated the tree and hung the stockings, which were all pretty standard. However, they’d also left out a mince pie and cucumbers for Santa… Very strange. Isla had seemed so excited about it though that Cormac just went with it.
Once Isla had gone to bed, the adults had finished preparing their gifts and setting them out under the tree. After a quick night cap (which wasn’t as awkward as Cormac thought it would be -- especially in the absence of Isla) he bid them goodnight and went to bed.
Still asleep as Isla thundered up the stairs, Cormac’s eyes were instantly opened the moment she turned the door handle.
Isla pushed the door open, letting the light from the hallway spill into the room. “Tippy toe, tippy toe,” she whispered loudly as she walked on the tips of her toes to the edge of the bed where Emma usually slept when she stayed the night. She climbed onto the bed and up to where the pillows were. “Santa came!” she laughed and bounced in the soft sheets. Mummy would have told her ‘no’, but mummy was in the kitchen right now, and daddy hadn’t said that she couldn’t.
Cormac had to hold back a laugh as he heard Isla’s attempt at sneakyness. They would really have to work on that later… or maybe not. Wouldn’t that just encourage her to sneak out of the house later to meet boys or whatever? He wouldn’t be the reason for that!
Staying still, even as she climbed onto the bed, he let her pounce him awake. After a gasp of ‘surprise’ he pushed himself up and asked, “Did he now?” his voice cracking with sleepiness. “Is everyone else awake?”
Isla nodded solemnly; everybody else was awake, and there was even a new lady that she hadn’t seen before. “My mum,” she said and counted the first finger, “my gramma,” she counted the second finger, struggling with the R, “my Juyian, and…” she stopped. Pointing to her fourth finger. What was the lady’s name again? “My Juyian’s mum,” she finally concluded. “One, two, three, four,” she counted on her fingers, holding them up for daddy to see. Then she patted her own chest. “I’m three years!”
Ah, so the boyfriend was here already. Cormac kept his expression excited though, and he genuinely was. Seeing Isla so happy was infectious. He still couldn’t believe that this child in front of him was his child. It seemed like he was more suited to be the bad-influence uncle, but alas, he was the real deal. “That’s quite a crowd,” he commented, pushing himself up further to a seated position. “Should we go down so we can open presents?”
Isla wasn’t sure what a crowd was, but she still nodded because if daddy said it was, then it was most likely true. Hearing that they could go open the presents her face lit up even more and she nodded eagerly. “Presents!” she cheered and bounced a couple of times on the bed, before she climbed down and held out her hand to daddy, her head tilted slightly. “Come on!” she urged him, because really? What was taking him so long? Oh, but it was difficult to stand still, so while she waited she started jumping in place; there were presents and people downstairs!
Was he not supposed to say the p-word? Uh oh… Grabbing Isla’s hand, he let her drag him down the stairs. As they joined Alicia, Julian and the parents, he tried to flatten down his bed-head, though without much success. “Morning,” he said, smiling tentatively at first. This was probably going to be super awkward. Especially with the boyfriend here.
Alicia looked over to where Isla and Cormac had appeared in the door to the kitchen. She bit back a chuckle, sympathetic with his attempt to straighten his hair; her own most likely still resembled a dead cat, and she had just met Julian’s mum for the first time. “Morning,” she smiled back. “Merry Christmas. Mrs. Dorny, this is Cormac McLaggen, Isla’s dad. Cormac, this is Josephine Dorny, Julian’s mother.”
“Merry Christmas, dear,” her mum cooed as she made her way through the kitchen, to urge him further into the kitchen with a hand on his back. “Did you sleep well?” she asked him, before she returned to the counter, where she turned to look at him. “Coffee? Tea? Or hot chocolate?”
Alicia glanced up at Julian. Obviously her mum had hit overdrive, and seeing as how it was still dark outside, this had the potential for being a long day. She wouldn’t let it, though. If they could just take it easy and simply enjoy the company for what it was, she was certain that this would actually be a pretty good – and long – day.
“Presents!” Isla cheered and raced into the kitchen, reaching up her arms to be picked up again. “Santa came,” she announced once again. “And now we get presents.”
Picking up Isla, Alicia looked to the others. “Presents?” she suggested, though she knew it’d be something akin to child abuse to ask Isla to wait too much longer now that it was Christmas morning and everybody was awake. She set Isla down again and picked up her mug of coffee and Isla’s glass of juice, letting Isla lead the way back to the reception room where the tree was standing by the window. Glad to see that someone had lit a fire in the fireplace, she waited for the others to sit, before she took a seat on the floor by the chair closest to the fire.